Meg Kissock and her sweetheart stopped to listen.  Saunders Mowdiewort smiled an unprofessional smile when he heard the song of the natural.  “That’s a step ayont the kirkyaird, Meg,” he said.  “Gin ye hae sic objections to hear aboot honest men in their honest graves, what say ye to that elricht craitur scraichin’ aboot the verra deil an’ his hearth-stane?”

Certainly it sounded more than a trifle uncanny in the gloaming, coming out of that dark place where even in the daytime the black Galloway rats cheeped and scurried, to hear the high, quavering voice of Jock Gordon singing his unearthly rhymes.

By-and-bye those at the house gable could see that the innocent had climbed to the top of the peat-stack in some elvish freak, and sat there cracking his thumbs and singing with all his might: 

    “Hech how, black an’ reeky! 
    In my hole sae black an’ reeky, O!”

“Come doon oot o’ that this meenit, Jock Gordon, ye gomeral!” cried Meg, shaking her fist at the uncouth shape twisting and singing against the sunset sky like one demented.

The song stopped, and Jock Gordon slowly turned his head in their direction.  All were looking towards him, except Ebie Farrish, the new ploughman, who was wondering what Jess Kissock would do if he put his arm around her waist.

“What said ye?” Jock asked from his perch on the top of the peat-stack.

“Hae ye fetched in the peats an’ the water, as I bade ye?” asked Meg, with great asperity in her voice.  “D’ye think that ye’ll win aff ony the easier in the hinnerend, by sittin’ up there like yin o’ his ain bairns, takkin’ the deil’s name in vain?”

“Gin ye dinna tak’ tent to [care of] yersel’, Meg Kissock,” retorted Jock, “wi’ yer eternal yammer o’ ‘Peats, Jock Gordon, an’ ‘Water, Jock Gordon,’ ye’ll maybes find yersel’ whaur Jock Gordon’ll no be there to serve ye; but the Ill Auld Boy’ll keep ye in routh o’ peats, never ye fret, Meg Kissock, wi’ that reed-heed [red head] o’ yours to set them a-lunt [on fire].  Faith an’ ye may cry ‘Water! water!’ till ye crack yer jaws, but nae Jock Gordon there—­na, na—­nae Jock Gordon there.  Jock kens better.”

But at this moment there was a prolonged rumble, and the whole party sitting by the gable end (the “gavel,” as it was locally expressed) rose to their feet from tub and hag-clog and milking-stool.  There had been a great land-slip.  The whole side of the peat-stack had tumbled bodily into the great “black peat-hole” from which the winter’s peats had come, and which was a favourite lair of Jock’s own, being ankle-deep in fragrant dry peat “coom”—­ which is, strange to say, a perfectly clean and even a luxurious bedding, far to be preferred as a couch to “flock” or its kindred abominations.

All the party ran forward to see what had become of Jock, whose song had come to so swift a close.